Nothing Lasts Forever (Even The Stars Die)
by adorablebadass
Summary: There was silence between them for a moment as they both searched each other's eyes for something. Some sort of explanation for all of this. A reason as to why Cosima was fighting brain cancer at twenty-eight. A reason as to why she'd had her entire life, all her hopes and dreams and accomplishments, ripped away from her in a matter of weeks.


**Characters:** Cosima, Delphine, Tony (as Cosima's twin brother), Leekie, Felix, Kira (briefly), and some original characters.  
**Relationships:** Cosima/Delphine. Tony/Felix.  
**Rating: **T for now.  
**Universe:** Alternate. There are no clones. Just Cosima and Tony as twins (sorry if anyone ships them).  
**Author's Note:** This is my first Cophine/OB fic so please leave constructive criticism. I'm used to other fandoms and I've learned OB has like the nicest people so I'm not too worried about receiving unnecessarily mean reviews.

* * *

Green.

A sea or ocean or something more poetic of green surrounding a mesmerizing hoop of canary, dotted with caramel.

It took a moment before Cosima realized she was staring at a pair of beautiful eyes until they blinked, long lashes brushing blushed cheeks. The eyes moved back, allowing her own eyes to focus on the woman with shoulder length and shaggy honey-blonde hair the tantalizing green eyes belonged to.

"Patient is conscious." She said, her accent thick but intelligible.

Cosima blinked, through bleared vision, she finally noticed the others in the room. Someone coughed awkwardly, and she forced her best charming smile. Truth was, her throat burned and her mouth was dry. She licked her lips but only came across even dryer lips.

"Get the patient water." A man commanded; his voice not deep but still demanding obedience and respect.

Cosima blinked again as five pairs of eyes, including the mesmerizing ones she'd awaken to, stared at her inquiringly.

A straw pressed against her mouth and she allowed access, sucking carefully on the water. Immediately it was like the first time she'd gone backpacking and hadn't showered in a week. It was a glorious experience, being doused with deliciously warm and clean water.

That calmed the burning ache in her throat. "Thanks." She uttered weakly, her own voice sounding foreign to her. The other occupants seemed to not notice.

"Do you know where you are, Ms. Niehaus?" the man of authority from before asked.

She nodded; the movement more subtle than jerky. "Hospital." She answered in a whisper.

"That's right." There was something resembling praise in the man's voice. Cosima didn't know why but it irked her. "I'm Dr. Leekie, your attending physician. Do you know _why_ you're in the hospital, Ms. Niehaus?"

She shook her head, as she finished off the water in her cup. She frowned when it was taken away from her.

"Ms. Niehaus, you are here because you attempted to take your own life." His allowed no chance for her to ignore the gravity of the situation.

Her heartbeat accelerated and she swallowed thickly as the memories rushed back to her relaying the flickering images.

Pills.

Lots of pills.

* * *

Six months prior.

...

A tray of bland food was pushed toward her containing a plastic container of beige Jell-O that looked like it had hair growing on top of it. "C'mon, Cosima. You have to eat something."

Cosima sat back in her chair, crossing her arms rebelliously. "I want real food. Like…French fries and burgers saturated in grease."

Her brother laughed despite himself at his sister's idea of 'real food' then pushed the untouched tray away with a repugnant grimace, not sparing one last glance at the food. "You can't have that Cos."

Cosima looked annoyed. "My doctor never said I couldn't eat that." She dared a second glance at the tray, deciding to take the only thing that looked edible and not alive; the mashed potatoes. Her stomach grumbled loudly and she flushed but otherwise poked her spoon into the pasty food nonchalantly.

"Those weren't your _doctor's_ orders and you know it." Tony said, eyeing the mashed potatoes before Cosima could take a bite. "Look, how about I go get you something from a restaurant? Something already cooked?"

"Or you could let me go home and I'll cook it myself." She said, frowning at the reminder she had a refrigerator full of food she wouldn't be cooking any time soon if her brother had anything to say about it.

"Can't do that." Tony jacked the mashed potatoes from his sister's grasp and threw it back onto the plate as if it were poisonous. She started to protest. "I didn't like the way they looked. This hospital's got the best doctors in the country but the worst food."

"I don't know…" Cosima sighed longingly as she glanced at the woman eating alone at the next table. "Her food looks pretty good."

"She's a doctor. They have the good stuff reserved for them."

Cosima made a face of resentment and disapproval.

"Let's get you back upstairs." Tony stood.

"Just a few more minutes." Cosima stayed seated, even folding her legs beneath her on the chair. "I haven't left that bed all day. I need a few more minutes if I'm going to be left alone again for hours."

Her brother looked guilty but she waved her hand dismissively. It wasn't his fault she was stuck in a hospital bed alone for hours at a time. She understood he had a job. She also understood he had a life. She actually encouraged him to stay away from her in the hospital. No one should be forced to watch their twin sister die. No one.

"I have to get back to work." Tony told her, although he sat back down as if he planned to stay just because she wanted to. "I requested this weekend off but no one's willing to trade me the hours." He looked pensive, as if he was trying to map out his work schedule and Cosima schedule, trying to find a way to keep the two from intersecting.

"Don't worry about me." She found herself saying despite the fact she wanted nothing but to spend time with her brother. He knew it too. "I've got like a ton of books I need to get reading anyway. I got them last year at the pride parade and I never really sat down to read them. Most of them are romance." She made a gagging noise.

Tony smiled faintly at his sister's efforts to persuade him. "I want to see you anyway, Cos. I should be here. With you. God knows how many-" he stopped himself, jerking his head away from her.

Cosima tried to find his matching brown eyes. "Hey, no. I'm not…I'm not going anywhere yet. We've still got plenty of days left, Tony."

"You don't know that." Her brother snapped. His voice caught the attention of some of the other diners in the cafeteria, even the woman that was eating at the table next to them. She paused, looked over, and then returned her gaze back to her food and her phone.

"I do know that." Cosima said, her voice allowing no disagreement with its firmness. "We've still got a fighting chance at this. I promise."

Tony seemed to be unable or unwilling to disagree so he just nodded as hot tears trailed down his cheeks. He brushed them away with the palms of his hands before sighing deeply.

Cosima watched her brother, feeling a whirlwind of emotions. Regret, resentment, agony, fear, and even love. But what she most felt was strength. The strength to prove her brother's fears wrong. To scurry them away from the dark recesses of his mind because they had no business being there. She touched his hand across from hers and he looked up, almost startled by the coldness of her skin.

There was silence between them for a moment as they both searched each other's eyes for something. Some sort of explanation for all of this. A reason as to why Cosima was fighting brain cancer at twenty-eight. A reason as to why she'd had her entire life, all her hopes and dreams and accomplishments, ripped away from her in a matter of weeks just because there was an aggressive tumor attacking her brain.

Tony clenched his jaw, the muscles flexed, before he ripped his hand away from his sister's grasp. As if the cold of her skin burned his own. "I have to get to work." He stood abruptly, his shoulders straight and his chest squared.

He looked every bit the soldier he once was five years ago. It was frightening to Cosima.

They said nothing, she focused her eyes on her own traitorously shaking hands and he stormed off in the direction of the exit.

Several minutes passed before she could stop her hands from shaking. She blinked away unshed tears. Now was not the time for pity. She was going to beat this cancer and she was going to accept her job at Lakehead and she was going to live a long fulfilling life.

* * *

The next day, that very same time, Cosima sat in the cafeteria which happened to be in the bowels of the building just above the morgue frightening enough. This time her brother wasn't there to provide an entertaining distraction for her so instead she scraped the food on her tray around hoping it would look appealing if she rearranged it several times.

She'd called Tony only once for it to go to voicemail. Her calls, as of late, rarely went to voicemail. It was all she needed to be told he wanted time. Time she would give him. Even though it pained her to know he was hurting.

Cosima could give him time. Totally. It wasn't like he was her only family left, considering they'd both been alienated from their parents for their life decisions. It wasn't as if she'd moved to this big city with no one but her brother and had been so focused on working that she forgot to make friends or even acquaintances.

No, she totally had a life and people to depend on aside from her brother. Totally.

Cosima sat back in her chair, pushing the tray away and giving up on eating an appetizing meal before pulling her the sleeves of her oversized knit sweater over her hands. She looked around the cafeteria for someone that looked as alone as she did, but found almost everyone had someone and if they didn't, they pretended they were focused on their phone or a book.

What she did notice was the woman from yesterday. The woman that witnessed her brother's outburst but seemed to not mind. The woman wasn't half bad looking. In fact, Cosima smiled, she was quite beautiful. This time a book without its sleeve accompanied her and the woman kept her eyes glued to it.

It was a great effort but Cosima managed to stand up, walk a few steps over, and plop herself down in the chair opposite from the woman. With a self-deprecating smile, she waved meekly. "Hi."

The woman glanced up, then around at the empty tables, and then back to Cosima. Her left brow arched curiously. "Hello." She returned carefully, her French accent thick but distinguishable.

Cosima leaned forward to get a better glimpse of the words that seem to have captured the stranger's attention once again. "Whatcha readin'?"

"A book." The woman replied, not looking up from her book this time.

Cosima wouldn't relent. "Oh yeah? What's it about?"

The woman inhaled, aggravation flowing off of her in waves as she slammed the book close. She folded her arms over it and stared Cosima down, demanding her to get to the heart of her interruption.

"I'm Cosima." She introduced, extending her cold fingers.

The woman studied them but didn't touch them.

"This is the part where you say your name then shake my hand and we create a budding friendship while I slowly die in this hospital." She dared a glance at the woman's badge clipped to the collar of her doctoral white-coat. "Doctor…Cormier. Pleasure to meet you." She let her hand drop.

"I know who you are, Ms. Niehaus." The woman informed. "I work with Dr. Kane. Your doctor."

Cosima's brows shot up in surprise.

"I'm his resident." The woman explained.

Cosima could vaguely remember now; all the times she'd woken in the middle of the night to find a woman standing over her and checking her vitals while jotting down the information in her chart then leaving just as swiftly as she'd entered. She hadn't thought much of it. Honestly, she'd assumed that woman was a nurse doing the grunt work Dr. Kane was too busy to do.

But it made sense that he had a resident doing it for him. She just wondered why it was always when she was asleep. Was the woman forbidden from talking to the patients? If so, why? And would she get in trouble for talking to Cosima now? Especially since Cosima had approached her?

She was torn from her thoughts by an incessant beeping.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Niehaus. I must go. I-It's-I have a patient that's…"

"Dying." Cosima finished for her. "Go." She encouraged, nodding her head towards the exit.

The woman looked appreciative for some reason unknown to Cosima then dashed off, leaving her book behind.

_The Last Lecture,_ the words on the inside stated boldly.

_Ironic_, she thought as flipped it to the first page and began reading.


End file.
